What does California’s new toxic substances law mean?

What does California’s new toxic substances law mean?

A short while ago, the point out of California one particular-upped these producers by approving the landmark Safer Buyer Products and solutions polices, which choose effect October one, 2013 and will need companies to look for safer options to the harmful chemical ingredients at this time located in usually applied goods.

As the California Department of Toxic Substances Management (DTSC) observed in a press release, this is a single of the initially programs of its form in the planet. The laws lay out an considerable, time-consuming critique procedure that commences with the condition establishing a list of “Candidate Substances.”

Suppliers can then figure out if any of their “Priority Products” consist of a person of these substances perform an “Alternatives Analysis” as to what safer ingredients might be substituted and then wait around for “Regulatory Responses” to be issued.

All this may possibly audio easy ample, but could just take years to generate true outcomes in the marketplace. The eventual implications, nonetheless, are exceptionally extensive-achieving: If manufacturers have to reformulate their goods for sale in California – by considerably the most populous state in the country – they’ll probably do so throughout the board for merchandise sold in all states, in any nation.

The term “consumer products” is vague, making it challenging for businesses to exempt their goods from subsequent the laws. Luckily, California’s DTSC will prioritize a product for evaluation centered on the “Applicant Chemicals” it includes (if any), and just how dangerous these chemical compounds can be more than the everyday living cycle of the item – this means not just when it is made use of by the client, but also how poisonous its manufacturing method is on the atmosphere, among the other factors.

I admire California lawmakers for having this essential move in the name of public wellness, and I persuade shoppers to follow this story as it develops. Although it might take yrs for adjustments to be compelled on makers, all those with any amount of money of foresight will strike preemptively, and take away unsafe components ahead of currently being pressured to do so by regulation.

In the meantime, glance out for California’s list of “Prospect Chemicals,” to be unveiled at the conclude of October, and do some regulating of your have! Scour the cupboards and closets of your property and look at the chemicals on the list to individuals detailed as components on your favorite goods.

It is good that California desires to support safeguard its citizens, and by extension the relaxation of the region, from harmful substances, but only you can management which merchandise enter your dwelling and have an effect on the wellness of everybody inside.

Source: dailynewsen.com

Vitamin B could help reduce risk of stroke

Taking Vitamin B supplements may help to reduce the risk of stroke, according to a new study.

Researchers found that across 14 studies taking vitamin B reduced the risk of having a stroke by around seven per cent.

Vitamin B, which actually consists of a group of 8 vitamins, are generally found in fortified cereals along with meat such as tuna, liver and fruit such as bananas.

Processed foods such as bread, however, tend to contain low levels of B vitamins and so many health experts encourage taking supplements.

Previous studies have revealed conflicting findings for whether vitamin B supplements can help guard against stroke or heart attack. Some have even shown it can increase the risk.

However, researchers at Zhengzhou University in China analyzed 14 clinical trials, involving nearly 55,000 participants.

They found there was a seven per cent lower risk of stroke among those taking the supplements.

There were 2,471 patients suffered strokes but the studies also showed vitamin B resulted in lower levels of a molecule involved in blood clotting called homocysteine.

The authors, whose findings are published in the journal Neurology, said: “Our analysis demonstrated that homocysteine lowering therapy with B vitamin supplementation significantly reduced stroke events.”

However, the researchers found vitamin B supplementation did not have a significant impact on reducing the risk of heart attack.

They also found that folic acid, which is also known as Vitamin B9, could reduce the benefits of taking other vitamin B supplements.

However, many health experts have been pushing to have folic acid added to bread to help ensure pregnant women get enough of the nutrient as it can protect against neurological diseases such as spina bifida in their children.

The researchers also found vitamin B12, which is a common supplement, did not appear to have any impact on stroke risk at high doses.

Previous studies have shown that vitamin B3 can help to improve recovery in patients who have suffered a stroke.

Dr Xu Yuming, another of the authors behind the study, said: “Based on our results, the ability of vitamin B to reduce stroke risk may be influenced by a number of other factors such as the body’s absorption rate, the amount of folic acid or vitamin B12 concentration in the blood, and whether a person has kidney disease or high blood pressure.

“Previous studies have conflicting findings regarding the use of vitamin B supplements and stroke or heart attack.

“Some studies have even suggested that the supplements may increase the risk of these events.”

“Before you begin taking any supplements, you should always talk to your doctor.”

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Accidental ingestion of acids common among children

The immediate symptoms are vomiting and severe abdominal pain with mostly children mistakenly consuming substances like toilet cleaners or acids kept in mineral water bottles or other daily-use containers, the doctors said.

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) authorities say more than 50 such cases reach the hospital’s emergency every year with peak incidence between 1-3 years of age.

Esophageal injuries caused by ingestion of caustic agents occur frequently in small children. Commonly, the ingestion occurs because of inadequate storage of products such as acids, alkali and bleaches, doctors from AIIMS said.

According to the doctors, ingestion of such corrosives burns the food pipe from inside and causes ulcers in it. These ulcers bleed and perforate, which is often life-threatening.

Sir Ganga Ram Hospital receives 20-25 cases in a year.

“When such an accident takes place, family members should try to stimulate vomiting and rush the child to a paediatric where endoscopy should be done within 25 hours.

“If the reports reveal that the ulcers are too deep, then a nasojejural tube is inserted through the food-pipe. It takes almost four to six weeks for the injury to heal.

“But the actual problem starts after the healing as it leads to the narrowing of the food pipe and the child may have difficulty in swallowing even his saliva,” Dr Nishant Wadhwa, Paediatric Gastroenterologist at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said.

Apart from esophageal complications, these corrosives can cause severe damage to the stomach due to pyloric spasm and accumulation in the antrum, Dr Pankaj Vohra, Paediatric Gastroenterologist at Max hospital, said.

“They form ulcers in the stomach and cause swelling and obstruction of stomach outlet. In such cases, nothing should be given by mouth. The child should be started on intravenous fluid and given parenteral nutrition.

“After that, the child should undergo endoscopy for some time. Surgical interventions may required if there is a complete obstruction,” Dr Vohra said.

However, precaution is always better than cure. Doctors advise that such poisonous substances should be kept in secure places out of reach of children.

Potential household poisons should not be transferred to empty containers (otherwise used for food or beverages) and corrosives should not be kept in the open.

Source: Businessstandard.com

Beat insomnia with yoga, Ease Stress, and Relieve Pain

If you’ve already tried everything from a warm bath to a warm glass of milk but you’re STILL lying awake counting sheep, wellness expert Peggy Hall has another tip that could help you get a good night’s sleep.

The next time you find yourself lying awake at night, grab your yoga mat: , relieve stress, and ward off aches and pains that can keep you tossing and turning. Closing your eyes and breathing long, slow breaths can have a sedating effect on the body, says Sara Ivanhoe, featured instructor on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab. “I’ve had trouble sleeping since I was an infant,” she says. “One of the reasons I got into yoga is because I wanted to learn to relax on command.”
“As a yoga instructor, I’ve developed two easy and effective yoga moves that anyone can do,” says Peggy. “Whether you’re a yoga pro or have never done yoga before!”

The first move she recommends is what she calls “Sleeping Beauty”:

  • Sit on the bed and place two pillows or a folded blanket to your left side.
    Bend your knees toward the pillows and let your feet go to your right.
    Place your chest and side of your head on the blanket. Close your eyes
    and relax for five to eight breaths. Repeat on the other side.
  • Why this works: According to the traditions of yoga, when you lie on your
    back, your brain tends to stay more alert, so it’s not conducive to falling
    asleep. But when you’re face down or curled up, your brain senses a
    drawing in and a calming down. If you like to sleep on your back,
    that’s fine — just start out on your side until you get drowsy, then you
    can turn over.

Peggy’s second move is the “Whole Body Blast”:

  • Lie on your bed, face up.
  • Tense your whole body, making fists, and clench every muscle tight. Hold this position and hold your breath for a few seconds, then release everything. Repeat a total of three times. Peggy says that this helps squeeze out the last remaining bits of physical and emotional tension that can lead to insomnia.

“You’re going to feel such a sense of relief after doing these simple moves,” says Peggy, “that your body is naturally going to enter the sleep zone so you can wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day!”

Source: Americanownews.com

Single cup of tea `boosts the brain

A new study has claimed that the nutrients found in a cup of tea can boost your brain power and increase alertness.

For the research, Dutch scientists studied the brain activity in 44 young volunteers to analyze the effect of key chemicals, an amino acid called L-theanine, and caffeine at levels typically found in a cup of tea, News.com.au reported.

The natural ingredients radically enhanced accuracy across a number of switching tasks for those who drank the tea after 20 and 70 minutes, compared with those who didn’t.

The study also found that tea drinkers’ had heightened alertness and were less tired as compared to their non tea-drinker counterparts.

Researchers added that the results of the study suggest that the combination helps to focus attention during a demanding cognitive task.

The study was published in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience
Read more: http://www.indiavision.com

 

How to prevent initial weight gain

Obesity has been a long standing problem for many people but now a new method could help prevent people from getting overweight and obese

All participants in the study were 30-65 years of age and were recruited on the basis that they had twice participated in Vasterbotten Intervention Programme (VIP), which is carried out in Vasterbotten, Sweden, or in the Upstate Health and Wellness Study, in New York State in the US.

The thesis shows that of all VIP-participants who were of normal weight or overweight and took part in the VHU study in 1990-2004, only about one third did not gain weight.

One surprising result was that younger individuals of normal weight, without type-2 diabetes, and without risk factors for cardiovascular disease were those least likely to maintain weight.

Kristina Lindvall, a dietitian and doctoral candidate at the Unit for Epidemiology and Global Health, said that this means that interventions and programs aiming at prevention of overweight and obesity may need to be broadened to also include these groups that are normally regarded as being at low risk for weight gain.

Source: Sify.com

 

Cure for lifestyle-related diseases comes closer to reality

A new research suggests that changing your lifestyle could actually help your body’s metabolism, which could help fight against major diseases.

The study has found that an unhealthy lifestyle leaves traces in the DNA, which may have specific effects on metabolism, causing organ damage or disease.

Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen have now identified 28 DNA alterations associated with metabolic traits in the world-first epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of modified genes and metabolites.

In the course of life, aging processes, environmental influences and lifestyle factors such as smoking or diet induce biochemical alterations to the DNA.

Frequently, these lead to DNA methylation, a process in which methyl groups are added to particular DNA segments, without changing the DNA sequence.

Such processes can influence gene function and are known as epigenetics.

Scientists of the Institute of Genetic Epidemiology (IGE) and the Research Unit Molecular Epidemiology (AME) at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen are seeking to determine what association exists between these epigenetic processes and the health consequences, in particular for the metabolism.

To this end, the team led by Christian Gieger (IGE) and Melanie Waldenberger (AME), in collaboration with Karsten Suhre of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar analyzed blood samples from more than 1800 participants of the KORA study.

In doing so, they analyzed more than 457,000 loci in the DNA as to biochemical alterations and compared them with the concentrations of 649 different metabolites.

The analysis showed that the methylation of 28 DNA segments changed a number of important metabolic processes.

“This study gives us new insights into how lifestyle factors can influence metabolism via the resulting alterations in the DNA,” Gieger, research group leader at the IGE, said.

“We can now use these results to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes,” he said

The research is published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics.

Source: ANINews

 

Smoking during pregnancy can lead to asthma in grand kids

Researchers have discovered that smoking can have a lasting legacy, and one well-established risk factor for asthma is having a mother who smoked during her pregnancy.

When animal mothers are exposed to nicotine during pregnancy-a proxy for smoking-their grandchildren were also at an increased risk of asthma, even though they were never exposed to nicotine themselves.

Wondering if this dangerous heritage might extend even farther down the family line, Virender K. Rehan and his colleagues at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) exposed pregnant rats to nicotine.

They then tested an additional generation-the mothers’ great-grand-rats-for signs of asthma .

Their results suggest that this group of rats is also at an increased risk of this condition, bearing the brunt of nicotine exposure three generations in the past.

The study is published in the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society.

Source: Zee News

YouTube star records own brain surgery

YouTube star Charles Trippy video logged his own brain surgery, according to The Jacksonville Observer.

Trippy, of Tampa, Fla., holds The Guinness World Record for the most number of days consecutively uploading video logs (vlogs) to YouTube. He currently has over 978,000 subscribers.

After fainting and suffering from a seizure in February 2012, Trippy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which was removed shortly thereafter.

However, after the procedure Trippy continued to suffer from seizures. During a follow-up appointment, doctors discovered a small piece of tumor remained in his brain, The Jacksonville Observer reported.

On September 17, Trippy went in for a second brain surgery to remove the remaining tumor. Trippy, who remained awake during the procedure, got permission from doctors to vlog the surgery and post it to YouTube.

“Hi honey – I love you. Everything’s going great,” Trippy said on his vlog, during surgery. “My brain is open and you can see the TV remote isn’t there like we thought.”

Source: nypost.com

How to Cope with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

One of the most important parts of having generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is learning how to cope with the persistent anxiety and some of the physical symptoms. This page can serve as a guide to coping with anxiety that will be frequently updated with new articles and information based on practical tips that work to cutting-edge research findings.

Understanding GAD

It is crucial to understand the elements of GAD as completely as possible to be able to cope with it effectively. The following articles are a good way to begin or increase your depth of understanding of GAD:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD basically means feeling tense and anxious much of the time over things that wouldn’t normally bother you – or not so much, anyway (1). Feeling like this every day can quickly suck a sense of meaning from life. Every day feels like survival.

This can happen because structurally, the brain and body of the ‘you 20,000 years ago’ are no different from today (okay, the ‘you’ back then may have been a little more buff…). My point here is that the natural responses that kept us alert and alive back then still work within us.

So what hunts you now?

Modern life has replaced ancient wolves with relationships gone bad, financial worries, unresolved traumas, bad bosses, fears of not fulfilling expectations adequately, bad diet, and excessive consumption of stimulants. Unless we learn to fend off and master the inner ‘wolves’ as we did the outer ones, we’ll fall prey to all the fear and anxiety reactions we evolved to feel.

It’s strange that this most ancient of responses is seen as pathological or even as a medical condition or ‘disease’.

People with GAD commonly report:

  • Feeling by turns restless and agitated, but also exhausted and unable to cope.
  • Unable to ‘switch off’ and relax.
  • Always being ‘on high alert’.
  • Difficulty sleeping.
  • Difficulty eating, digestive problems.
  • Other physical symptoms of stress such as raised blood pressure, palpitations, sweating, rapid shallow breathing.
  • Anxiety about everyday routines and circumstances, health worries, finances.
  • Worries seem to be out of proportion, meaning other people may be at a loss to understand just what is bothering you.
  • Worry seems to switch from one thing to another.

All of the above would fit the condition of a primitive person negotiating the savageries of pre-civilization. All of the above are natural adaptations we evolved to experience.

Experiencing GAD can be likened to driving a car in top gear in a 10 MPH speed limit zone. Adaptations need to be made so that you don’t waste ‘fuel’ in your daily life.

If you have been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, then try the following:

1) Remember it’s normal

Remind yourself that whatever scary GAD symptoms you’ve been experiencing are all part of the normal range of what we’re all supposed to feel sometimes. Forget the clinical formality of psychiatric diagnoses. Basically, you have been feeling like a pack of wolves has been on your trail. This is normal after a build-up of stress; you are normal.

2) Think about what stresses you and seek to minimize it

One wolf might be scary, but many together can be terrifying. Lots of little life stresses build up into a pretty intimidating pack of stresses. Ask yourself: when did this GAD start? What was happening in your life at the time? Was there more stress than usual? Even a few nights of poor sleep can be enough to make some people feel very anxious.

  • Have you been worrying about something in particular?
  • Is your diet full of stimulants such as sugar and caffeine?
  • Have you learnt how to relax the mind and body?

Remember you are safe

The level of anxiety, trepidation, and foreboding so often seen in people suffering Generalized Anxiety Disorder is appropriate, even useful, in ongoing physically dangerous circumstances. If you are not physically safe in your life right now, then you need to take immediate steps to ensure you are.

But as I’ve said, we all still respond to modern threats as if they were ancient physical ones. You need to remind yourself that, luckily, you’re not being pursued by threatening wolves bent on eating you. Next time you respond physically (nerves in stomach, rapid breathing, and increased pulse rate) when there is no physical threat, remind yourself:

Don’t worry about worry

One commonly reported symptom of GAD is worry about stuff that shouldn’t really be worrying at all. This happens because when you have strong feelings, your mind will seek ways to try to justify that emotion. It’s as if your mind has to make a container for the feelings – something to worry about.

Sound strange? Well, consider this: If you’re already, say, seething with anger about something, you can go out in the street still feeling angry and find yourself angry about the way strangers look, the little slow elderly woman taking too much time in front of you in line, the way someone speaks to you…anything. This will happen until you calm down again, at which point the things you were using to justify those angry feelings will no longer be bothersome.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder drives us to find stuff to feel worried about. It’s important you remember this so you can start to put worries into their true perspective.

Deal with the physical symptoms of fear

When you feel physically safe and calm, you breathe nice and evenly, your blood pressure normalizes, and your immune system works better. The more relaxed you feel, the more ‘normal’ other physical processes like sleep and digestion become. Insomnia was supposed to happen when we were being tracked by wolves. When your body and mind start to feel safe again, then restful sleep can return.

When you relax, you also find it easier to think clearly; anxiety has a way of clouding the brain. Relaxation also improves your mood, including your optimism and level of self-confidence. Suddenly, the wolves have gone or you have mastered them. This is very different from the constant worry and foreboding of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Source:  http://www.uncommonhelp.me/